Crop material such as hay, straw and the like is commonly harvested by compacting the material into bales tied with twine. These bales can be small square bales that can be handled by hand, but more commonly now they are large bales that can weigh up to 2000 pounds. These large bales can be rectangular or cylindrical, and when feeding such bales it is common to use a bale processor to shred crop material from the bale with a disintegrator or flail apparatus and then and discharge the shredded material onto the ground or into a feed bunk. Such a bale processor is disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 5,340,040 to Bussiere et al. and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,033,683 to Taylor.
It is sometimes desired to cover an area of ground with shredded bale material, for example as a mulch to protect freshly seeded grass, as bedding in feed lot pens, or for like purposes. U.S. Pat. No. 8,066,208 to Bennett discloses a bale processor that includes a fan for receiving shredded bale material and blowing it long distances to provide ground cover. The Bennett machine can also instead discharge shredded material laterally into windrow or feed bunk.
In the Bennett machine, an auger along one side of the bale chamber receives the shredded material and carries it forward to a chamber that has two openings, a first opening faces forward and is open to the fan, and a second faces to the side and is open to the intake of a short conveyor that carries the material laterally into a windrow or feed bunk. In operation one of the openings is closed by placing a panel in the opening, and the other is open, depending on which discharge system is being used.